


Heart in a box

by Howling_Harpy



Category: Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Closeted Character, F/M, Love Letters, M/M, Marriage, Period-Typical Homophobia, Relationship Crisis, Secret Relationship, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-12
Updated: 2020-12-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28032072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling_Harpy/pseuds/Howling_Harpy
Summary: Joanne Lipton found a box of letters while cleaning. She has questions to her husband.
Relationships: Carwood Lipton/Original Female Character(s), Carwood Lipton/Ronald Speirs
Comments: 9
Kudos: 32





	Heart in a box

**Author's Note:**

> I basically came up with more sad ideas of unfulfilled love. Read if you're drama hungry.
> 
> Kuodos and comments are love. 
> 
> Edit: This is a companion piece for [Mightier than sword](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199535). Both can be read independently, but they complement each other.
> 
> *
> 
>  **Disclaimer:** This is work of fiction based on the HBO's drama series and the actors' portrayals in it. This has nothing to do with any real person represented in the series and means no disrespect.

When he came home from work Carwood knew something was wrong as soon as he closed the front door. It was quiet in the house, the way it never was during late afternoon. The boys should have been home and doing their homework in the kitchen, and Joanne should have had dinner almost ready. 

Today there was no indication of any of it. The boys were either quieter than they ever have been or they were out, and there was no scent of dinner or even the faintest sound of dishes or pans coming from the kitchen. The entire house was completely silent, not even the tv was one.

Carwood stood still in the entry hall for a moment. He couldn’t know if anyone was home, but he had an unexplainable feeling that something was waiting for him. Prolonging it wouldn’t be of any use, so he took off his hat and his coat and put them away, then set down the briefcase, forgetting about it as soon as it left his hand. He took a deep breath to prepare himself and walked into the dining room.

Joanne was waiting for him in the spotless room, seated at the table. She sat at the head of the table, her brown curls were tied up in a loose ponytail and she was wearing her homely slacks and a loose sweater. She had been crying but now her face had settled on grim neutrality. On the table next to her sat a large black shoebox with its lid missing, and there was a neat pile of old letters from the overflowing box stacked next to Joanne. 

Logically Carwood knew instantly he was the one with explaining to do, but seeing all those letters spread out so carelessly, some without even their envelopes and knowing how hard those would be to match later, made him blurt out an upset “What have you done?!”

Anger flared up in Joanne’s eyes, but it seemed that she had worked most of it out of her system already. “What have _I_ done?” she repeated icily. “I have been doing spring cleaning. Now, if you’re done with _your_ questions, I have some of my own.” Her voice was level but barely so, almost trembling, and for a moment her hand gripped the pile of letters, crumbling them slightly. It hurt to look but Carwood swallowed his protests, his gaze anxiously looking back and forth between the letters and his wife.

“Who’s Ron Speirs?” Joanne demanded, her voice high and pretend-light. “And why is _he_ writing such things to _my_ husband?” 

“He’s just an army buddy,” Carwood replied, his eyes on the abused letters under his wife’s fingers.

Joanne stared back at him for a moment, then scoffed in disbelief. “A buddy,” she repeated, “a buddy who writes to you saying…” she shuffled through the letters on the table quickly, then picked one up, folded it open while holding it at the tips of her nails like something dirty, and read: “ _’Dearest, sweetest Carrie, the war is tiring and all I really feel like writing about is you. I have been dreaming of you again. Every time I close my eyes even for a blink, I see you there as if I only saw you yesterday. How I wish I could touch your face and kiss your beautiful mouth again. I carry the memory of your smile and how it tastes like a flame in my heart, and through this all it keeps me warm’_.” 

Joanne read the words in a bland, even voice like she could hardly bear to speak them at all. Carwood was amazed how the letter, its paper worn by having been folded and opened and read over and over, was so still in the pinch of her fingers.

She lowered the paper and let it drop on the table. As evidence it was so heavy it felt like it should have made a thud when it touched the surface, but it simply floated there like it weighed nothing. 

“What kind of an army buddy writes that?” Joanne asked in a small, cold voice. 

Carwood couldn’t bring himself to look up to her. He stared at the tabletop and saw her hand squeezing into a fist next to the pile of letters. 

“He is my very good friend,” Carwood said, his voice as small as Joanne’s. There was nothing else he could have said. “We knew each other in the army and kept in touch, that’s all.”

Silence fell into the dining room. Behind the tall windows the fresh green lawn shone like made of emeralds, and a few cars of their neighbours drove down the freshly pavemented street. Husbands just like Carwood were returning from work to their peaceful homes, exactly like he and Joanne but then again nothing like them.

Joanne seemed to be expecting more from him, and when Carwood didn’t say anything more, she began to fume. 

“Well?” she snapped. “Or should I read more? I read plenty, you know, I had all morning! I know that he calls you ‘darling’ and ‘dear’, and he talks about sleeping with you, talks about touching you, talks about missing being near you. Do you think I’m a fool or so naïve that I can’t piece together what that means?”

Carwood really didn’t. Joanne was a smart, worldly woman, and he didn’t doubt she had no trouble reading Ron’s letters exactly as they were meant. He just couldn’t think of anything to say to that. He felt a sickly flash of something hot that made him want to grimace when he looked at that gutted shoebox, its secret insides laid bare there in the sunny dining room on the oak table he had carved for his wife himself. 

Joanne scoffed again, sharper this time, and picked up another letter, making good of her threat. “ _’All my thoughts are with you. Sometimes I see someone resembling you, someone with deep brown eyes or someone with shoulders like yours, but over and over they fall short in comparison. No one is like you and no one can fill the place you left. All that I miss, all that I yearn, is really you, you and you, and sometimes I feel a little mad with this longing. I miss the days when you took a hold of me and calmed me against yourself, made me settle by your side and rest, and breathing you in undid me.’_ ” 

That feeling of sickening heat intensified into scalding as Joanne read the letter in her clear, sharp voice as if Carwood were standing on trial and what was in her hand was a piece of the most damning evidence. With a wince Carwood had to admit that that was exactly what it was, even if before it had been a sweet little secret he had cherished alone in forgiving darkness. 

“Enough,” he said in a painful hiss. 

Joanne turned her hard eyes to him and lowered the letter. She tossed her head back proudly, and despite the red rings below her eyes from her tears she looked harsh.

“That’s enough,” Carwood said, stronger this time. He felt accused and judged there in his own house, and even if the honest part of him knew it was justified it only made him angry. “You shouldn’t have taken those. Those are my private letters and you had no business in snooping around or reading them!”

“Snooping?” Joanne repeated, her voice just a breath when she chocked on her own anger. “I was cleaning this morning, which is what I do however I want in my own home!” She rose from her place as did her voice. Even in her plain home clothes she looked like a lioness, and the will to return the fire grew.

“It shouldn’t include going through my private belongings!” Carwood shot back and finally moved from the doorway. He lunged at the table and snatched the shoebox back to his side, then started to gather up the letters, any he could get his hands on and as quickly as possible. He couldn’t help but fear that Joanne wouldn’t for whatever reason give them back or that she had already perhaps destroyed some, and he wanted to save as many as possible. Paper rustled, tore and crumbled when he scraped up the letters, but he bit back a grimace and forced himself to settle on saving them. 

“Don’t you dare turn this on me!” Joanne snapped as she watched him hogging the letters back. There was a disturbed expression on her face when she watched Carwood gathering the letters, something caught between anger, confusion and disgust.

Carwood feared that expression and what it might entail, but still couldn’t stop himself from gathering up the letters in a way that revealed exactly how important they were to him.

“These are my things!” he nearly yelled back at her. “You are allowed to have your own things and I won’t pry into those! You don’t see me dumping your detective novels into the trash!”

“Don’t you dare even pretend that my hobbies have anything to do with this!” Joanne yelled. Her hands were fists by her sides and she shook with fury she was trying to control, but there were tears in her eyes again. “My novels are nothing like your… Your…” she fell mute and just gestured in frustrated anger for a second, “I don’t know what this even is!”

Carwood hugged the shoebox tighter and glared at his wife, hoping to silence her before she found the words.

Joanne bit her teeth together for a moment. Her shaking hands sank into her hair and combed through it anxiously. For a moment her eyes stared into emptiness, focused somewhere near the ceiling as she tried to hold up against the onslaught of emotion.

“What’s in those letters… That’s… That’s sick,” she managed to force out in a voice stretched thin with rage. Her fingers kept combing through her ponytail like she could untangle the situation like the knots in it. “It’s sick, how he talks about you. It’s not normal. God, I’ve heard stories of feeble men turning that way when taken away from women and put into desperate situations, but I never thought…” She swallowed and fell silent.

Carwood stood still and quiet too. He hadn’t been prepared for how her words slighted him like a lash from a whip. He shook in silence, stricken and unable to meet her eyes.

“Just… Just what happened to you?” Joanne asked, anger giving way to despair.

“Nothing,” Carwood replied.

“Don’t _lie_ to me!” Joanne cried out, but this time more in frustration than anger. “I read them! I know! You wrote back to him, didn’t you?!”

“I did!” Carwood cried back, his fingers clutching the shoebox as if something of Ron could support or shield him like that. “And that’s all! It’s just writing! That’s all I have left of him!”

Joanne seemed to swallow back another flood of words. There were tears spilling over and running down her cheeks, and for the first time during their marriage Carwood couldn’t go to her and wipe them away.

“You want him,” Joanne accused in a small voice.

Carwood couldn’t bring himself to either admit or deny it. He simply held onto the repurposed cardboard box full of paper. “I won’t let go.”

Joanne bit down on her lower lip. She blinked away the tears and struggled to look furious, her dark brows drawing closer together and her restless hands turning into white-knuckled fists again. “God,” she swore, “what happened to you?! What did you do?!” 

“Nothing!” Carwood answered in scandalized desperation. “I never did anything illegal or immoral! All we do is write, that’s it!” 

Joanne looked like she wanted to shriek when she turned her gaze towards the heavens. “I’d prefer a one-time sodomite of a husband who never wavered again to this!” 

Carwood had to sit down. He was truly grateful that Joanne had been caring enough to send the boys away for the afternoon before confronting him about this. He imagined how all of this would be a thousand times more horrible and destructive if their sons were at home and listening to all of this. 

“That was a really ugly thing to say,” he said in a voice so quiet it was barely a mutter.

Joanne seemed to be shaken by the strength of her own emotions and words too. She let out a heavy sigh and slumped back down on her chair again. “I know,” she admitted, sounding a bit drained. There were still a few letters lying scattered over the table, some even on her side out of Carwood’s reach, and the neat pile she had made had been pushed over.

Carwood realized he had hugged the box to his chest with both arms and decided he was far too old to be clutching to any illusion of safety like that. He forced himself to let go and set the box on the table next to him, then gathered up the rest of the scattered letters within his reach, quickly made a stack out of them and dropped them into the box, out of Joanne’s sight. 

“Haven’t I fulfilled my duty as your husband?” Carwood asked. He was speaking more to the tabletop than his wife, but from the corner of his eye he saw her paying attention. “Haven’t I been attentive, loyal and supportive of you? Haven’t I given you two sons and been a dutiful father to them?”

“You have,” Joanne admitted, her voice reserved.

“Then in my opinion, I should be allowed a pen pal,” Carwood said. 

Joanne was quiet a for a long stretch of silence, but then she huffed. It wasn’t accusatory or dismissive this time, but drained and almost faintly amused. 

“What’s in those letters goes a little past of having a pen pal,” she noted drily. 

Carwood glanced up and saw her wiping her eyes before folding her arms across her chest. She slumped down in the chair, the plain clothes turning the whole vibrant woman bleak and colourless like a dried flower, drooping just as sadly.

She swallowed with great difficulty. “I can’t say you haven’t done your duty as a husband, but that’s not my point.”

Carwood was at loss with his only defence dismissed. “What is your point then?” 

Joanne gave him a look that was almost gentle. Perhaps a bit on the side of pitying. 

It was as if something was breaking apart, and the terrifying feeling of falling forced Carwood to rush and try to save whatever he was able to. “I haven’t ever cheated on you, Jo,” he swore to her. “I wouldn’t do that to you. I swear I haven’t cheated, not even when I was over there! Not with him, not with anyone!” He needed her to know that just in case it mattered. “There was never anything except our silly friendship. I haven’t even seen him since the war, I swear, and we never actually did anything that wasn’t innocent.”

“I believe you,” Joanne said and sounded like she did. She sighed again, and her eyes happened on the few last letters laying on the table. She eyed one closest to her and after a moment picked it up, this time carefully like it was something terribly fragile.

The letter dangled from her fingers and she turned it over so it unfolded on its own. Slowly her eyes glanced the letter over, but this time she didn’t read it aloud. It seemed that she read the letter from beginning to end. 

“No one has ever written to me like this,” she said like she just felt like mentioning it. “How long ago did you say you last saw each other again?”

“Ten years ago,” Carwood answered. He recognized the letter in Joanne’s hand by its colour and the lines it had been folded along. Around those times Ron had gone through a phase when he folded the letters by their corners like making crude paper flowers out of them. 

Joanne made a huffing sound that shook her on her place, almost like she was laughing to herself. “Ten years, and he writes to you like this?” she said. She stared at the letter quietly for a moment longer. “I didn’t write to you like this.”

Carwood didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything.

“As a dutiful husband, please answer me this one question,” Joanne said, then turned to look him right in the eye. Her tears had dried and she was calm, but solemn in a way Carwood knew people were when they returned to find their home having taken a direct hit in an air raid.

Joanne looked straight at him. “Do you love him?” 

Carwood returned the favour and respect, even when forcing one little word out was painful like a mouthful of shrapnel. “Yes.”

Joanne made an affirming noise, gave a little shake of her head, then looked back at him. “See, that’s worse.”

Carwood frowned. “Worse than what?”

“Worse than cheating,” Joanne specified. She raised her finger, and for a second Carwood thought she was going to point it at him, but she simply left it like she was making a point during a lecture. “A simple fling I could forgive. I could look past that by telling myself it was a long ago and you had a weak moment, but now it’s over. But this…” she gestured at the vast space littered with Ron’s letters expanding between them, “You belong to someone else. You might not have been with him, but you certainly are with him.”

“But—” 

“You love another,” Joanne interjected sharply. “And that is _worse_.” She said it with heavy finality and a stinging look to Carwood. She let her hands slump down and lean together against her chest. Her fingers interlaced for a moment but it seemed she couldn’t stop wringing her hands in discomfort and the stillness didn’t last long. She picked at her nails absentmindedly, then started spinning her wedding band around the finger. 

It was a bright afternoon outside. The neighbour on the other side of the street turned the sprinkler system on to water the lawn, and Carwood stared at the water fan waving slowly from side to side. It was hard to believe that it was really an ordinary day, that his day had been just like any other not even an hour ago.

“Joanne?” Carwood said, his eyes still focused outside the window behind her back. “I’m sor-“

“I don’t want to hear it,” Joanne snapped, the fingers of her right hand still turning the ring over on her left ring finger, the gold of it shining in the sunlight. She gave a joyless quirk of her mouth and a flat look. “You don’t mean it, so don’t bother.”

That was fair, Carwood supposed. Joanne wasn’t one for pretends or lies. She had an appreciation for etiquette and good manners, but she never took things like that to the extent of a farce. He supposed that was why they were having this conversation in the first place.

“How are you doing?” he asked instead, weary but genuinely interested. Now that she wasn’t spitting and yelling at him, his attention focused on her red-rimmed eyes and the outfit of choice that was nothing like the stylish attire she usually put together daily.

“Oh,” Joanne said, blinked in surprise and even flashed a little smile. Caring from him still mattered, it seemed. “I’m… Hmm. Better now than I was this morning, I think.” She paused, inspected her nails, smoothed down her sweater and then went back to toying with her jewellery. “You know, I only planned to just take a look to see what was in that box and decide where to put it. But once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. I had to know what they were, and then… Well.” Her current state spoke for itself. 

“I’ve been distraught all morning. I missed grocery shopping. I just sat in the car and cried there, then decided I couldn’t keep sitting in the driveway crying and started driving. I… I think Mrs. Dawson saw me, actually.” She seemed to grow more worried as she recited her chaotic morning and touched her hand to her mouth.

“It’s okay, don’t worry about her,” Carwood assured her, waving the issue of nosy neighbours out of the way. “Where did you go?”

“I don’t really know. I just drove and thought of what I was going to do,” Joanne said, tugging at the hem of her sweater even though it was as smooth as it could be. “I considered ignoring it and going on like usual, pretending like I didn’t know,” she confessed quietly, her eyes averted like she was ashamed she had even considered it. “But that’s not me, I’m not one of those wives.” 

It got quiet again. They simply sat in the dining room, and with curiosity Carwood noted how they had switched their usual places. He wondered if they’d ever sit like they used to again, and with that he glanced around the dining room that had always been so warm and welcoming, then let his eyes wander over to the new curtains Joanne had sewed herself and the kitchen they had had renovated only a year ago. It was all very nice, quaint and proper, but Carwood knew he’d soon forget about it all if they’d move, just like he had forgotten all their previous houses before.

It seemed that the only thing he really took with him from one place to the next was that inconspicuous shoebox. When he turned to look at it, he noticed he had at some point rested his hand on it again and couldn’t say when.

“You really haven’t seen him since you got back from Europe?” Joanne asked, and when Carwood glanced to her, he noticed she was looking at the box too.

Carwood felt the sharp sting of guilt for some completely new reason and couldn’t say why. As if it had been better if he’d actually been meeting up with Ron, which they hadn’t precisely because they had both known they wouldn’t be able to resist the temptation. It had felt like such a grand, noble sacrifice to make through the years, but instead of righteous pride Carwood felt like he had just been a fool. 

“No, we haven’t met. We… thought it was for the best,” he answered. 

“Hm,” Joanne said. She didn’t sound happy about the answer, just kept staring at the shoebox and the trails of dust it had left on her spotless dining table. 

“Ron has – “

Joanne jolted as if she had set her hand on a hot stove. “No! Don’t you speak his name, I don’t ever want to hear it again! Don’t be mistaken, just because I care about you doesn’t mean I’m ever going to want to hear about him!” The words flooded out of her in a burst of pain. She had a wild look to her for a moment, a woman usually so composed and used to feeling comfortable. She was breathing hard in pain and anger and perhaps surprise at herself.

A heavy silence followed. Carwood was once again frozen, suddenly aware that this matter had the potential to wreak havoc to his life outside his house. Joanne might not have enough material to contact the police, but if she felt scorned enough she could certainly contact his boss or his mother.

For a moment he was afraid, and then Joanne slumped again, her hand coming to rest on her brow for a moment. She looked heartbroken, and guilt overtook Carwood again, now intensified by how he had worried about himself when the whole mess was really his fault and it was Joanne who was suffering. 

“I’m sorry for upsetting you,” Carwood said. He meant it, though apologizing felt almost comically useless at this point. 

“Hm.” It was all Joanne had to say to that. Her breathing settled as she stared into space and looked remarkably tired, probably already worrying about the future.

Carwood didn’t look forward to it either, so he chose to focus on the present. “Where did you send the boys?” he asked.

Joanne looked like she had forgotten about them and shook her head a little to return to the moment. She stopped spinning her wedding band and instead rubbed at her temple. “To Evelyn’s. She said she didn’t mind looking after them for a while.” 

Carwood nodded. His heart ached when he thought of their children who had no idea. “That was good of you.”

Joanne scoffed gently, and Carwood knew she meant ‘what else was I supposed to do?’ She wasn’t in the habit of accepting gratitude when none was earned. “There’s no need to mix them into this,” she said, paused and added, “there’s no need to mix anyone else into this, in fact.”

“Right,” Carwood agreed. He was careful not to feel too relieved, but he couldn’t help but feel gratitude and a wave of affection towards his wife, who was an overall remarkable person.

He wondered if he could ever dare to ask her about her thoughts, or if she could bear to talk to him about them, but he did wonder if she had really read all the letters, and if so, did she have the full picture. Did her picture even resemble Carwood’s own? 

He glanced towards the shoebox again and flushed thinking of the earnestness Ron wrote to him, how he spoke of him and of them, how from afar and on paper he said so much more than he ever had in person, and how his wife had pried on all of it. Ten years’ worth of enamoured letters full of naked longing and love kept at bay by distance only. Carwood wondered how Joanne believed so easily that they had never met despite the countless subtle openings Ron had left for him, how she trusted him to have ignored every single one.

Joanne nodded with decisiveness, then sighed. “Right then,” she said in a worn-out huff and stood up. “Are you hungry?” 

Carwood stared up at her for a moment. He had forgotten that it was dinner time. “I am, yes,” he answered.

Joanne nodded. “I’ll defrost us something,” she said, pulled off her wedding ring, set it on the table and walked to the kitchen.


End file.
